Andre Romani
CAJAMAR, Brazil (Reuters) – Latin American e-commerce giant MercadoLibre (NASDAQ:) expects its investment in Brazil this year to exceed the 23 billion reais ($4.35 billion) initially planned due to better-than-expected sales, the head of the local trading platform Fernando Younes said on Wednesday.
He told reporters that the revised capital expenditure plan could not be fully disclosed at this time as it was still being developed, but noted that the firm now forecasts hiring 11,000 people in Brazil this year, up from a previous estimate in 6500 people.
“Our growth was very strong in the first quarter. We are seeing growth higher than planned,” Younes told reporters during an event at the company’s logistics center in Cajamar. “This creates two consequences: more resources and more personnel.”
MercadoLibre intends to place some of the new staff at two new distribution centers it plans to open in Brazil this year, in the city of Porto Alegre and the capital Brasilia, Younes said.
Until now, MercadoLibre has announced its intention to open only one distribution center in Brazil – in Recife. The company has more than 20 distribution centers in Latin America, about half of them in Brazil, its main market.
CEO Marcos Halperin said the new forecasts apply to Brazil and not other markets, but noted that the company is seeing very strong growth in other countries where it operates.
MercadoLibre reported in May that first-quarter net income rose 71% from a year earlier, beating analysts’ estimates driven by its performance in Brazil and Mexico.
At the event, MercadoLibre said it had begun implementing a new strategy aimed at improving the efficiency of its distribution centers, using robots from Chinese company Quicktron to automate the process of picking products before packaging them.
As a result, most products in a distribution center could potentially ship about 30 minutes to hours earlier than typical same-day delivery, said Agustin Costa, senior vice president of transportation business.
The company is expanding the strategy to one of its centers in Cajamar, near the city of Sao Paulo, and aims to replicate it in other centers and countries, executives said.
($1 = 5.2849 reais)